Shall I compare thee to a summer's day...
Far from the madding Crowd's ignoble Strife...
Emma felt the tears running down her cheeks...
I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered...
Move him into the sun...

English literature may very well be the greatest body of imaginative writing the world has yet seen. The human experience has been understood, interpreted and conveyed by writers of genius in a tradition stretching through six or more centuries, from Chaucer to Philip Larkin, from Defoe to William Golding. Here, accompanied by a wealth of examples, is the story of a literature that has touched the hearts and stirred the minds of countless readers through the ages.